Thrissur:
The canonisation process of Sr Mariyam Thressia, the founder of the Holy Family congregation of nuns in Kerala, is a step closer now. An expert team in Vatican has approved a miracle, the survival of a child born with acute respiratory failure, attributed to her intercession.
Christopher, son of Joshy and Shibi from Choondal in Kanavamkod in Thrissur, was baptised the day he was born as doctors feared he would not live long. The child’s lungs were underdeveloped. His heart had three holes. He could have died any day.
But he survived. On April 9, 2009, the doctors testified that the boy was cured.
Christopher’s family avers that they owe the child’s life to the prayers of Sr Thressia. They said that they prayed for the child with a relic of the beatified nun.
Mariam Thressia was born to Anna and Thoma of the Mankudiyan family at Chirammel in Puthenchirayil near Mala on April 26, 1876. She joined a convent when she was just nine years old. She founded the Holy Family congregation on May 14, 1914. She died on June 8, 1926.
The Vatican has been perusing the process to declare the nun a saint. The case of Christopher has given a fillip to the process.
Christopher outlived the medical prognosis but he had difficulty in speaking as a child. The family said that he got better after they took him to pray at the tomb of Sr Thressia.
The case for elevating the nun as a saint has two more stages to pass - a debate in the curia and the approval of the Pope’s office.
Fr Benedict Vadakkekkara and Sr Rosmin Mathew are leading the proceedings.
Karnataka notifies minority tag to Lingayats, amid protests
Bangalore:
The Karnataka government on Friday notified minority religion status to Lingayats amid protests by some sections of the community.
"The state Social Welfare Department has issued a notification terming Lingayat followers of 12th century social reformer Basava's philosophy (tatva) as a religious minority," an official told IANS here.
The notification comes three days after the state cabinet decided to grant the status to Lingayats and Veerashaiva Lingayats who are believers of Basava ideology.
Lingayats, who worship Hindu god Shiva as their deity, and Veerashaiva Lingayats constitute the largest community (17 per cent) in the southern state.
The notification, however, omitted 'Veerashaiva' word to Lingayats as then UPA government had in 2013 rejected the state government's proposal to grant religious minority status to them (Veerashaivas) as they are considered to be Shaivaites and hence cannot get a separate religious tag.
Earlier in the day, the Akhila Bharatha Veerashaiva Mahasabha urged the state government not to grant minority religion status to the community and withdraw the cabinet decision.
"Lingayats and Veerashaiva Lingayats are one and the same. They cannot be treated separately from followers of Basava as Panchacharyas founded the Veerashaiva, which is an ancient religion," Mahasabha President and state Horticulture Minister Shamanur Shivashankarappa told reporters here.
The Mahasabha urged the state government not to divide the community.
"The state government should go back and revisit the report that was submitted to the UPA government on the issue after which the decision to grant the religious minority status to Veerashaiva Lingayats and Lingayats was earlier stopped," added Shivashankarappa.
BJP's state unit president and former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddurappa termed the government move as an election gimmick and accused the ruling Congress of dividing the people on religious and caste basis.
"The Congress government is dividing society on emotional issues. There is only one Lingayat-Veerashaiva. The separate religion tag to Lingayats is an election gimmick. It is an attempt to mislead the people," Yeddyurappa said earlier.
LJP to move Supreme Court against dilution of anti-atrocities Act
New Delhi:
NDA constituent Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) on Thursday said it will move Supreme Court against the order that dilutes the stringent provisions under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
Addressing a press conference here, Union Minister and LJP President Ram Vilas Paswan also urged the government to file a review petition as the rights of oppressed classes were compromised.
"There is anguish among people from SC and ST communities over the order. There is feeling of insecurity as the court's order can be misused. Our party demands that the government should file a review plea against the dilution of provisions on the Act. Our party will also file a separate review petition," he said
LJP Parliamentary Party Board Chairman Chirag Paswan noted that the act "was the only weapon" that SCs, and STs had for their protection. "Our party leaders and workers have raised concerns over its dilution. So our party has decided to file a separate review petition in the court. It will mostly be done next week."
Ram Vilas Paswan said he was Minister of Labour and Welfare in V.P. Singh government when the anti-atrocities act was passed in 1989 to protect SCs and STs from caste slurs and discrimination.
In 1996, several amendments were made in it to strengthen it further, he added.
The party also expressed its opposition to the proposal of separate Lingayat religion saying the SCs and STs in the fold would lose benefits like reservation.
"At present, SCs and STs under Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh religions get reservation benefits. If new religion of Lingayats come, these communities would not get those benefits. So LJP is against separate Lingayat religion," said Ram Vilas Paswan.
Taking a dig at Congress, he recalled that the Manmohan Singh-led government had in 2013 rejected the proposal by the All India Veershaiva Mahasabha to grant religious minority status to Lingayat and Veerashaiva Lingayats on the grounds that they were a sect of Hindus and not an independent religion.
Indian journalists face newer forms of intimidation
Srinagar:
Six months after journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot dead at the door of her residence in Bengaluru in southern India, outspoken writer K.S. Bhagwan faces a death threat in the same state of Karnataka.
The murder of Lankesh, known for being a critic of Hindu extremism, has created national outrage against the use of violence and murder to suppress free speech and non-conformist writings.
"With Hindu nationalists trying to purge all manifestations of 'anti-national' thought from the national debate, self-censorship is growing in the mainstream media," says Reporters Without Borders in its latest report.
The atmosphere of intolerance increased after the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014 in a landslide victory, which Hindu groups took as mandate to accelerate their goal of making India a Hindu-only nation, critics say.
An average of three journalists are killed each year in India, according to the Press Freedom Index, which ranked the country 136th out of 180 nations. More than 70 journalists have been killed in India in the past 24 years.
Besides death and intimidation, "journalists are increasingly the targets of online smear campaigns by the most radical nationalists, who vilify them and even threaten physical reprisals. Prosecutions are also used to gag journalists who are overly critical of the government," Reporters Without Borders said.
The government has no direct control of the media, said Sidharth Bhatia, a senior journalist. "But there are pressures from owners, managements, advertisers and sometimes political parties. It is not the happiest of situations," Bhatia told ucanews.com.
Indian laws and regulations are also used to check journalistic freedom, says Mukund Padmanabhan, editor of India's leading newspaper, The Hindu.
"Sometimes it is the government and sometimes other groups that use these laws against journalists," he said.
Indian laws that deal with promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence and language can be used against journalists. Their works can be interpreted as acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony or deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings. Violation of these laws can be punished with imprisonment, Padmanabhan said.
More than 100 million copies are printed each day of about 82,000 newspapers and periodicals published in languages including English, Hindu and Urdu. India also has 400 satellite news channels in 18 languages for a population of 1.2 billion people.
India has one of the biggest media markets in the world, attracting companies more interested in profit and forming public opinion than in journalistic values.
A report compiled by Indian news portal The Hoot shows that in 2017 alone there were 54 attacks on journalists in India. They were mostly carried out by political parties, drug peddlers and officials accused of corruption.
Geeta Seshu, the Mumbai-based consulting editor of The Hoot, does not believe law enforcement acts efficiently against those attacking journalists.
She said in several cases the police's first response to a threat, attack or killing of a journalist was to claim that the victim was not a journalist or that the attack was not related to work.
"There is a deflection and that becomes the narrative. That becomes the course of the investigation also. And, unfortunately, our criminal justice system depends a lot on the local police report and investigation," Seshu said.
Police are responsible for the first stages in any investigation. Applying faulty and appropriate sections of the law, not clearly recording witness statements or not protecting vulnerable witnesses, and not following up on preliminary investigations could damage justice, she said.
Social media attacks are a newer threat, said Shahid Sidiqi, editor of Urdu newspaper Nai Duniya (New World). "Once a journalist does any story against a particular political party, he is trolled ruthlessly and abused. This exposes him to even greater threats," Sidiqi said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has his own way of undermining media, according to Hamia Qazi, a research scholar at the journalism department of Kashmir University.
"Since coming to power, he hasn't held a single media conference to take direct questions from the media. Rather, he has been selectively giving interviews to handpicked media persons. This has set a trend of undermining the media and their authority to question the government," Qazi said.
Lankesh's murder was a warning to those speaking against Hindu extremism, with the government suspected of indirectly supporting those intimidating non-conformist journalists.
Freelance photojournalist Kamran Yusuf was arrested by the National Investigation Agency on charges of being involved in anti-India protests in Kashmir.
He was jailed but released on bail on March 14. One charge against him was not covering pro-government stories as a journalist.
After the Lankesh murder, investigators arrested K.T. Naveen Kumar, leader of Hindu Yuva Sena (Young Army of Hindus). Local media reported that his interrogation revealed a plan to kill writer Bhagwan in Mysuru.
Journalists working for local media outlets are "often the targets of violence by soldiers acting with the central government's tacit consent," said the Reporters Without Borders report.
Srinagar:
Six months after journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot dead at the door of her residence in Bengaluru in southern India, outspoken writer K.S. Bhagwan faces a death threat in the same state of Karnataka.
The murder of Lankesh, known for being a critic of Hindu extremism, has created national outrage against the use of violence and murder to suppress free speech and non-conformist writings.
"With Hindu nationalists trying to purge all manifestations of 'anti-national' thought from the national debate, self-censorship is growing in the mainstream media," says Reporters Without Borders in its latest report.
The atmosphere of intolerance increased after the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014 in a landslide victory, which Hindu groups took as mandate to accelerate their goal of making India a Hindu-only nation, critics say.
An average of three journalists are killed each year in India, according to the Press Freedom Index, which ranked the country 136th out of 180 nations. More than 70 journalists have been killed in India in the past 24 years.
Besides death and intimidation, "journalists are increasingly the targets of online smear campaigns by the most radical nationalists, who vilify them and even threaten physical reprisals. Prosecutions are also used to gag journalists who are overly critical of the government," Reporters Without Borders said.
The government has no direct control of the media, said Sidharth Bhatia, a senior journalist. "But there are pressures from owners, managements, advertisers and sometimes political parties. It is not the happiest of situations," Bhatia told ucanews.com.
Indian laws and regulations are also used to check journalistic freedom, says Mukund Padmanabhan, editor of India's leading newspaper, The Hindu.
"Sometimes it is the government and sometimes other groups that use these laws against journalists," he said.
Indian laws that deal with promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence and language can be used against journalists. Their works can be interpreted as acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony or deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings. Violation of these laws can be punished with imprisonment, Padmanabhan said.
More than 100 million copies are printed each day of about 82,000 newspapers and periodicals published in languages including English, Hindu and Urdu. India also has 400 satellite news channels in 18 languages for a population of 1.2 billion people.
India has one of the biggest media markets in the world, attracting companies more interested in profit and forming public opinion than in journalistic values.
A report compiled by Indian news portal The Hoot shows that in 2017 alone there were 54 attacks on journalists in India. They were mostly carried out by political parties, drug peddlers and officials accused of corruption.
Geeta Seshu, the Mumbai-based consulting editor of The Hoot, does not believe law enforcement acts efficiently against those attacking journalists.
She said in several cases the police's first response to a threat, attack or killing of a journalist was to claim that the victim was not a journalist or that the attack was not related to work.
"There is a deflection and that becomes the narrative. That becomes the course of the investigation also. And, unfortunately, our criminal justice system depends a lot on the local police report and investigation," Seshu said.
Police are responsible for the first stages in any investigation. Applying faulty and appropriate sections of the law, not clearly recording witness statements or not protecting vulnerable witnesses, and not following up on preliminary investigations could damage justice, she said.
Social media attacks are a newer threat, said Shahid Sidiqi, editor of Urdu newspaper Nai Duniya (New World). "Once a journalist does any story against a particular political party, he is trolled ruthlessly and abused. This exposes him to even greater threats," Sidiqi said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has his own way of undermining media, according to Hamia Qazi, a research scholar at the journalism department of Kashmir University.
"Since coming to power, he hasn't held a single media conference to take direct questions from the media. Rather, he has been selectively giving interviews to handpicked media persons. This has set a trend of undermining the media and their authority to question the government," Qazi said.
Lankesh's murder was a warning to those speaking against Hindu extremism, with the government suspected of indirectly supporting those intimidating non-conformist journalists.
Freelance photojournalist Kamran Yusuf was arrested by the National Investigation Agency on charges of being involved in anti-India protests in Kashmir.
He was jailed but released on bail on March 14. One charge against him was not covering pro-government stories as a journalist.
After the Lankesh murder, investigators arrested K.T. Naveen Kumar, leader of Hindu Yuva Sena (Young Army of Hindus). Local media reported that his interrogation revealed a plan to kill writer Bhagwan in Mysuru.
Journalists working for local media outlets are "often the targets of violence by soldiers acting with the central government's tacit consent," said the Reporters Without Borders report.
